soft armour (2021) in collaboration with Ella Rose

soft sculpture and concept by Ella Rose, photography by Karina Alejandra

exhibited at the Fifth Edition of the “I wIll Always Love You” Every Women Biennial show from March 2nd - March 24th, 2024, at 47 Great Jones Street

a quote from the artist about the piece -

"soft armor" (2021), is a self-portrait in my wearable sculpture, photographed by the beautiful Karina Alejandra Garza aimed to capture the bodily response to the violence of sexual assault. This experience is shared with an overwhelming number of women I deeply love, and by those I will never meet.

Trauma like this can cause a chronic and unsafe feeling inside the body-the past is alive in the form of a gnawing, interior discomfort. Senses become muffled (dulled?) making it difficult to feel fully alive.

This piece is about grappling with suffocating dissociation and the robbery of physical autonomy, the feeling of being reduced to meat. In "soft armor", the liver, (which breaks down and filters poisonous substances), is sewn into the shape of a trauma plate-alluding to that of the same name—a piece worn under a military ballistic vest. The barbed wire bustier cages this visceral mess. Constructed in the performative fashion of 1950's lingerie, this element reflects the still beating desire of women to feel pleasure, sexuality and ownership of one's body.